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Alright, I promised pictures, so here they are. This is Cadberry (yes, berry, don't ask me why).  Click here for the full 720x405 image.  Click here for the full 720x405 image.  Click here for the full 720x405 image.  Click here for the full 720x405 image. I have more if you guys want more. These are the best, though.
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Mar 9, 2010 02:51
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| # ? May 13, 2024 23:55 |
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Hahaha is that a Sheltie on a treadmill? Very smart.
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Mar 9, 2010 05:25
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Cat & rabbit update: Rabbit is a horrible grumpy old man. I'm not worried about the cat ever starting anything - but the rabbit has become more aggressive. He used to be such a docile sweetie, but nowadays he's just angry that the scent of the cat is around, and we hear him often charging at nothing, shaking the edges of his pen, and has even begun breaking out. He got upset the other day at nothing, and I tried to calm him down by giving him a treat. He went for it, but bit my finger open in the process. He's never, ever bitten before, so it was a total shock, but I'm not angry at him - he was scared and has poor short-range vision, of course he's going to charge and be aggressive to whatever appears in his sight. Is there anything we can do to ease the transition, and help curb this aggressive behaviour? For the record, we keep the rabbit & cat totally separate...not that it would be an issue, because the cat is pretty terrified of the rabbit, and the few times they have had contact resulted in the cat just sort of turning tail and running. My bf and I both acknowledge that this seems like it's gonna take a long time, and there's even the possibility that they may never co-exist and always have to be separated, but we'd like to try what we can before resigning ourselves to that.
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Mar 9, 2010 18:51
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Is the rabbit neutered? When you're not supervising, is the cat kept totally out of the rabbit room?
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Mar 9, 2010 18:57
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alucinor posted:Is the rabbit neutered? Yes, and yes. Rabbit is neutered. Cat has his own room, rabbit has his own room, and they're kept entirely separate almost all the time, except for a few supervised excursions. The rabbit just seems to sense that the cat is in our home and it drives him crazy.
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Mar 9, 2010 18:59
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StrangersInTheNight posted:The rabbit just seems to sense that the cat is in our home and it drives him crazy. Good job all around, then, but this may be the heart of the issue. Think about it this way: How would you react if you knew there was a convicted sexual predator living next door? Would you get jumpy every time you heard a noise? Would you be more conscientious about checking that your door was locked? Would you become hypervigilant about your neighbor's comings and goings, and perhaps even start keeping tabs on visitors who came to their door? If they had a visitor who, instead of leaving, hung around in the laundry room alone, would you maybe confront the visitor and tell them they needed to leave? I am one of a number of people who disagrees with the HRS party line that rabbits can "often" bond with a non-rabbit companion animal, especially talking about a predator like a cat. Their body language is different. Their circadian rhythms are different. Their basic social structure and biological drives are different. And, perhaps most importantly, one of them was evolved to eat the other. They literally have nothing in common from a biological/evolutionary perspective. So although many households do have the two cohabitating successfully, I think it's merely tolerance rather than bonding, and that in most cases, the rabbit does not actually gain any benefit from the presence of the cat companion. In fact, a lot of studies seem to suggest that it's detrimental to the rabbit to house them with a predator: it's been demonstrated that rabbits who are regularly exposed to the scent of a predator have higher cortisol levels (a physiological measure of stress) than those who do not, and that the presence of predator odors causes behavioral changes, such as a reduction in grooming and foraging and an increase in anti-predator and vigilance behaviors. Most importantly, these responses have been shown to differ in intensity across individuals. Some rabbits "get along fine" with cats and dogs, but others, apparently, do not. Even if there is no overt behavioral change, there might be underlying physiological changes that have the effect of subjecting the rabbit to chronic stress. Just think about all the effects of chronic stress in humans: decreased immune response, depression, mood swings, etc... So basically, there's nothing you can do to improve things if, as seems probable, the rabbit is having a physiological and behavioral response to the very presence of the new predator in his house. You could perhaps test this if you had access to a vet school which could draw blood cortisol levels and match them against known normal baselines. If that were the case, you could see about putting him on bunny Prozac, I guess. Other than that, I think "wait and see" will be your only option. It's certainly possible that prolonged repeated exposure might eventually reduce his reactions to the cat (similar to desensitization treatment of phobias in humans) but the trade-off is that until that happens, you will have a rabbit who is going to be experiencing chronic stress, and exhibiting the behaviors and physiological symptoms associated with that. Just be forgiving of his aggression, and continue to be very alert to potential indicators of illnesses. vvvvv Edit: Oh no!! I'm so sorry. alucinor fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 19:30
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Well, got back home from a 2-day trip yesterday to find Bowser acting very un-Bowser. Hiding, not moving much, in general acting like a sick bunny. Boyfriend is at the vet with her now- preliminary tests point to either kidney failure or a kidney infection. Sigh. Edit: It's kidney failure. She's coming home today, but going back in tomorrow to be put down. We've had her for ten years. She was my first pet in my adult life. Melicious fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 19:53
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I'm so sorry to hear that, Melicious That's a hard loss to take.
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Mar 9, 2010 20:51
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Melicious posted:Well, got back home from a 2-day trip yesterday to find Bowser acting very un-Bowser. Hiding, not moving much, in general acting like a sick bunny. Boyfriend is at the vet with her now- preliminary tests point to either kidney failure or a kidney infection. Sigh. nooooo! Your stories about Bowser were some of the first ones I read in this thread and I always thought they were cute. I'm so sorry. 
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Mar 9, 2010 21:12
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Melicious posted:Well, got back home from a 2-day trip yesterday to find Bowser acting very un-Bowser. Hiding, not moving much, in general acting like a sick bunny. Boyfriend is at the vet with her now- preliminary tests point to either kidney failure or a kidney infection. Sigh. oh nooooo! I'm so sorry to hear that. 
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Mar 9, 2010 21:30
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alucinor posted:animal advice Thanks so much for this info, I'll definitely keep it in mind. Right now we're just trying to work patiently, and we're very glad we have a scaredy-pants cat who is not going to press anything if the rabbit displays disapproval. I guess we'll just take time and see how it goes. Melicious, that is awful, I'm so sorry
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Mar 9, 2010 22:45
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 Hey there's a way to make some money, rent out your rabbits for Easter photo shoots. My rabbit would gently caress some kids up.
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Mar 9, 2010 23:57
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Melicious posted:Well, got back home from a 2-day trip yesterday to find Bowser acting very un-Bowser. Hiding, not moving much, in general acting like a sick bunny. Boyfriend is at the vet with her now- preliminary tests point to either kidney failure or a kidney infection. Sigh. I'm very sorry. Ten years is a good age for a rabbit but I guess it's still not enough time. Try to make her last night a happy one.
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Mar 10, 2010 01:16
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Melicious posted:Bowser So sorry to hear this.
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Mar 10, 2010 05:22
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Melicious posted:Bowser I'm so sorry for your loss
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Mar 10, 2010 13:25
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I think I've figured out why my rabbit keeps getting hair-related GI problems. I noticed that when he appears to be grooming himself he's actually pulling the fur out of his neck, giving himself a bald spot.rabbit.org posted:Fur-plucking in the neck or dewlap, belly, and leg areas occurs in pregnant females who are close to delivery, to line their nest. Even pseudopregnant females sometimes pluck in that area. Did I mention it's a boy?  He gets huge amounts of fiber and doesn't have anything to be stressed about, nor does he have problems with being flexible enough to groom himself. Frankly at this point I'm willing to accept that he's just really weird and not very bright. But this combined with the fact that he still occasionally leaves cecals lying around might just be a reason to go see the vet.
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Mar 10, 2010 13:51
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Newb question: About how long do you find your timothy hay and litter material of choice last? We're trying to figure out how often to buy this stuff and see if there is a good way to buy it in bulk to save $$$.
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Mar 10, 2010 16:45
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Melicious posted:Well, got back home from a 2-day trip yesterday to find Bowser acting very un-Bowser. Hiding, not moving much, in general acting like a sick bunny. Boyfriend is at the vet with her now- preliminary tests point to either kidney failure or a kidney infection. Sigh. I'm so sorry. She was well loved and we all knew you took excellent care of her. 10 is a great age for a bun.
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Mar 10, 2010 20:19
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Ehud posted:Newb question: About how long do you find your timothy hay and litter material of choice last? We're trying to figure out how often to buy this stuff and see if there is a good way to buy it in bulk to save $$$. Do you mean how long does it last in storage without going bad, or how long does it take your animal to go through a certain amount? In either case, buying in bulk is the only way to go. I've seen hay last months without going bad. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing hay spoil. (Well, I did find a dessicated mouse corpse in a small bag of timothy hay once, but that was kind of a different issue.) I think that if you keep it dry and reasonably cool, you'll be fine buying the big, cheap boxes. If you put it outside in a shed in the Florida summer or something, your mileage may vary. I think unused litter should last even longer. Carefresh and Yesterday's News are paper products, and should just last until you need them. Aspen shavings and wood pellets should be fine for however long you keep them, too. I guess you can check them for mold or critters living in them if you're worried, but I can't imagine you'd have any problems with them. How much litter you go through for your animals will vary greatly depending on the size and shape of your cage, how often you clean, what kind of bedding you use, and how deep you pile it in. I probably use more than most people, and I go through about a bag per week of Carefresh, for a large cage with two guinea pigs. A big bag of aspen shavings would probably last me a month or so and be a lot cheaper, but it's not as easy on my little guys' tushes. Honestly, the largest sizes of these things tend to be so much cheaper than the smaller quantities that even if you did lose a little bit of it to spoilage at the end, you'll still come out ahead financially. More important, however, is to make sure you're getting good quality food and bedding. There's some surprisingly grungy looking hay brands out there - and maybe they would spoil if you didn't use it quickly. (In fact, rabbits and guinea pigs who are used to really good stuff, sometimes won't even recognize the crappy stuff as food if you do give it to them. They'll just look at this crud in their food bowls, then look at you to ask what the gently caress you're doing filling up their hay mangers with straw bedding.) If you buy the good stuff (Oxbow, Kleenmama are probably your best bet), you can buy it in bulk to help keep costs down. For example, this supplier of Oxbow lists the price for 15 oz of hay as $4.99, or just about $5/lb. The 50 lb box is $62, or $1.25/lb. As long as you use 12 lbs of it (less than a fourth) before it goes bad, you will at least break even by getting the largest box instead of the smallest bag. And you're unlikely to find any cheap crap in the grocery store for less than $1.25/lb anyway. Peristalsis fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Mar 11, 2010 |
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Mar 11, 2010 05:56
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Peristalsis posted:Do you mean how long does it last in storage without going bad, or how long does it take your animal to go through a certain amount? For instance, if we bought the 50 liter bag of carefresh and used it only in his litterbox, how long would that last before we run out? And if we bought a 50 lb box of hay from the site you suggested, how long would that last (assuming it doesn't spoil)? When I'm looking at food and bedding/litter, it seems like you get such a low amount for the high prices. I'm wondering if I'm going to be spending a fortune on food and litter or if these "what look small to me" quantities actually last a pretty long time.
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Mar 11, 2010 15:15
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Blakles posted:Thanks for all your information. Ehud and I were wondering about both now that you mention it, but were mainly wondering how long it might take him to go through a certain amount. The largest bag of carefresh is the 50 liter bag. If you have an 18"x12" litterbox and you fill it 1" deep, and you change it 2 times per week, it will last about 2 weeks. If you use a large hay manger which holds a generous 8 oz of hay, you will typically need to refill between once a day and once every other day, depending on how much veggies and pellets he eats each day. So a 50 lb box of oxbow hay will last about 100-200 days (about 2 boxes per year).
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Mar 11, 2010 16:35
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alucinor posted:The largest bag of carefresh is the 50 liter bag. If you have an 18"x12" litterbox and you fill it 1" deep, and you change it 2 times per week, it will last about 2 weeks. The Carefresh is going to get expensive I suppose. Especially since I was anticipating changing the litter way more than twice a week.
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Mar 11, 2010 17:21
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Blakles posted:Finally! Thank you. I had looked everywhere online and no one had an actual *amount* of hay bunnies eat per day. So around 8 oz is average. That won't be too bad. Keep in mind that this is a rough estimate*, and your bunny needs to be fed as much hay as he will eat. A larger or more active rabbit will eat more hay than a smaller or less active one. A rabbit being free-fed pellets will eat a lot less hay than one eating only a tiny amount of pellets per day. Some rabbits are naturally wasteful and will pee on as much as they eat, making it go faster. Etc etc. Too many times I've met people who let the hay manger go empty because "he can't still be hungry, he didn't finish his pellets!" or "this bag has to last a whole week so he can't have more than X amount per day". Don't be that guy! *For the sake of full disclosure, I derived 8 oz per day via the following method: Each week I go through 40 lbs = 640 oz of hay. I have 12 large hay mangers which are filled every day, so I use 640/12 = 53.333 oz per manger per week; which is 7.6 oz per manger per day.
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Mar 11, 2010 18:03
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alucinor posted:Keep in mind that this is a rough estimate*, and your bunny needs to be fed as much hay as he will eat. A larger or more active rabbit will eat more hay than a smaller or less active one. A rabbit being free-fed pellets will eat a lot less hay than one eating only a tiny amount of pellets per day. Some rabbits are naturally wasteful and will pee on as much as they eat, making it go faster. Etc etc. 
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Mar 11, 2010 18:14
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Blakles posted:Finally! Thank you. I had looked everywhere online and no one had an actual *amount* of hay bunnies eat per day. So around 8 oz is average. That won't be too bad. Use woodstove pellets. OSH carries them and the bag markets them as horse bedding as well, but it's $6 for 40lbs I think. It takes me about a month to go through a bag.
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Mar 11, 2010 19:03
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Bunway Airlines posted:Use woodstove pellets. OSH carries them and the bag markets them as horse bedding as well, but it's $6 for 40lbs I think. It takes me about a month to go through a bag.  I thought about those because of the low-cost, but they looks so uncomfortable.
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Mar 11, 2010 19:06
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Blakles posted:Aren't those rough on their feet? Not that I've noticed. I've used wood pellets for a few years now and it's no different than Feline Pine or Yesterday's News(I think this is what I'm thinking of) pellets. Neither one of my rabbits have any problems and spend about 60% of the day just sitting in their litterboxes. They're weird. I've got an issue with Murphy Lately he's been a bit lazy with cleaning himself and I often have to pull bits of poo off his hind regions. I suspect it's because of his deformed little face, but I'm not positive. His nerve issues have gotten worse to the point that half of his face is basically paralyzed, but he still eats pellets and hay just fine, only a little slower. I don't want to have to give him baths, but I was wondering if anyone had ides on what I can do to help him keep clean. He's getting quite frustrated with being picked up all the time. Here is his adorable little gimpy face:
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Mar 13, 2010 06:51
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Windy posted:I've got an issue with Murphy Nah, the pellets break down anyway when stepped on. Mine seem to love a good fresh bunch that are all hard still. Windy,  . How old is he? Older buns can have issues keeping up with cleaning anyway, and I'm sure it's hard for him given his face.
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Mar 14, 2010 07:55
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Murphy will be 6 this year, so he is old, but not too old. Although if you ask my vet, Murphy was near the end of his life at 4 
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Mar 14, 2010 22:00
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Windy posted:Murphy will be 6 this year, so he is old, but not too old. Although if you ask my vet, Murphy was near the end of his life at 4 Yeah that's not that old, it's probably his poor mushed face.
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Mar 15, 2010 05:17
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Windy posted:I don't have a bunny, but I keep coming back to this thread to see this picture. I want a rabbit that looks like Murphy, I love his sweet goofy little face
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Mar 15, 2010 08:00
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Whelp, here is our new bunny! Meet Cosmo:  He did really well on the car ride home. He was obviously pretty scared but Blakles sat in the back and tried to calm him down by petting him. We got home and put him in his new three story home and he hopped around and checked everything out with his nose and teeth. He loves his litterbox! He pissed in the wrong corner once, so we moved the box over there and he's really taken a liking to it. I wanted to see if you guys had any advice on a few things: - He is very, very skittish. We leave the cage door open and let him hop out but eventually a car drives by outside or we try to pet him, and I guess his defensive instincts kick in because he runs back into the cage to hide. Do you guys have any tips for getting him used to human beings and areas outside of his cage? Is it just a matter of time? We're letting him decide when to do everything on his own terms but we wanna see if there is anything we can do to make him less scared. - He likes to get in the back corner of the 3rd floor, but then he never comes back down. We thought he couldn't figure it out but at 3am last night we checked on him and he had peed and pooped a bit in that corner. So we went to grab him from the top cage opening and put him back down to the base floor with his litterbox and the little booger ran right down himself! Obviously he knows how to get down but he'll sit there for hours at a time unless we either grab him and put him down or apparently he gets freaked out enough to run back down. Our plan here is to keep the 3rd floor blocked unless we're home and hope he gets familiar with it. We've also tried putting appealing items on the box that leads down to the 2nd and 1st floors but he doesn't seem interested. Any ideas? Overall he's doing really well. He was grinding his teeth while we petted him yesterday. It was the most thing ever.edit: I should add that he has NOT been neutered yet and that is on our agenda. Ehud fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Mar 15, 2010 |
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Mar 15, 2010 15:32
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Aw he's really cute. I guess he's just not too used to the new environment, but I can't say for sure, I don't know how long he's been with you. Judging from the "pet me now" pose in the first pic I can tell at least it's not you he's uncomfortable with. As for the 3rd floor thing, rabbits love being high up and getting a good look at what goes on below them. My friend got a 2 story rabbit cage and her rabbit now spends a large amount of time upstairs. My guess is they just really like it up there. Probably not a lot to be done about that. Oh and I would advise you to avoid grabbing him while he's in his cage. It's his safety zone and they hate being picked up.
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Mar 15, 2010 15:49
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DS at Night posted:Oh and I would advise you to avoid grabbing him while he's in his cage. It's his safety zone and they hate being picked up. We definitely try to keep this to a bare minimum. I can tell he doesn't like it  The only time we pick him up is when he's been up high for way too long and we're afraid he's going to pee or take a dump. When he gets put back down, he immediately starts eating grass, going to the bathroom, and drinking water as if he's been waiting to do all three. We assume this means he was too scared to hop down or couldn't find his way down. We're fine with him hanging out upstairs, just as long as he comes down to go potty 
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Mar 15, 2010 16:51
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MallcoreMotion posted:I don't have a bunny, but I keep coming back to this thread to see this picture. I want a rabbit that looks like Murphy, I love his sweet goofy little face I was afraid he'd morph into the "so ugly it's cute" category after first dealing with his nerve issues, but he just went from cute to extra-cute Ehud- I leave the doors open on my rabbits cages and they both seem to prefer just hanging out in there instead of running around and being social. Debbie is much more inquisitive and outgoing than Murphy, so she will be more apt to approach you for pats on the head, but Murphy runs from his shadow and always has. I have to agree with DS as your little guy looks like he's receptive to human company. You can try sitting/laying on the floor near the opening of the cage with treats or food. He'll be more keen on approaching you when you have food, and then eventually associate leaving his perch with safe and rewarding activities.
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Mar 15, 2010 19:24
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Windy posted:Ehud- I leave the doors open on my rabbits cages and they both seem to prefer just hanging out in there instead of running around and being social. Debbie is much more inquisitive and outgoing than Murphy, so she will be more apt to approach you for pats on the head, but Murphy runs from his shadow and always has. He's so cute, I just want to pet him so badly but the only time he will let us is when he's in the cage. It's hard to give him a good pet with your arm barely fitting through an opening in the cage. This morning I was sitting out side the cage with the door open...He came out and bumped my knee and then put his foot up on my knee. I thought he was going to crawl into my lap, but then he just ran back inside. 
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Mar 15, 2010 20:50
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It could be, but every rabbit is different. Murphy seems friendly and playful until I make the approach, then it's "OMG Hide!". But if I sit there by the cage he'll come up and sometimes let me pet him. Though, he ALWAYS wants to be pet through the cage which is really uncomfortable for my fingers/hand. He comes downstairs too, but again, it's on his own terms and only if he feels invisible. I think it's cute, but it's also frustrating. That's why I have two rabbits 
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Mar 15, 2010 20:58
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Windy posted:I think it's cute, but it's also frustrating. That's why I have two rabbits Haha I hope Cosmo comes around. We can't do this much poop and pee x2. This little guy is a pooping machine.
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Mar 15, 2010 21:11
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DS at Night posted:Oh and I would advise you to avoid grabbing him while he's in his cage. It's his safety zone and they hate being picked up. I suppose this varies; Zen is very very tolerant of being picked up. Frith is not so much, but he literally will never come out of his pen through the door, so I need to go in and fetch him out to get him to get some exercise. Otherwise he would never leave. :/
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Mar 15, 2010 21:35
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| # ? May 13, 2024 23:55 |
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Blakles posted:This morning I was sitting out side the cage with the door open...He came out and bumped my knee and then put his foot up on my knee. I thought he was going to crawl into my lap, but then he just ran back inside. Well that's definitely a request for attention. That's good I guess. He'll probably end up figuring out he gets more of it outside the cage. angelicism posted:I suppose this varies; Zen is very very tolerant of being picked up. I agree some rabbits are more tolerant of it (like my friend's rabbit who's generally okay with it) but I wouldn't say any of them actually like it. edit: I don't think I've heard any of the posters here ever say their rabbit sat in their lap. The location is not secure enough for them. They prefer sitting next to you while getting a nose rub or ear massage. Mine will occasionally lie down on my chest for a cuddle when I'm lying down myself but I think that's because there's nothing looming over him. DS at Night fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Mar 15, 2010 |
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Mar 15, 2010 22:20
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